The novel’s prologue is a single page and serves to set up both the book’s main plot point—the quartet of deaths in New Bremen in the summer of 1961—and its chief thematic content. The latter is conveyed via a quote by Greek playwright Aeschylus, as told to Frank by his father, Nathan Drum: “‘He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God’” (1). We also learn that Frank Drum is narrating the events of that summer of 1961 from forty years after said events occur. 

It’s the summer of 1961, and the Drum household has no air conditioning. Frank Drum is thirteen years old and shares a bedroom with this younger brother, Jake. Frank can’t sleep, due to the night’s heat. The phone rings. Frank’s father, Nathan, answers. We learn that a war buddy of Nathan’s, Gus, is in jail for a bar fight. Nathan is a Protestant minister; Guslives in the basement of Nathan’s church, which is across the street from the Drum household.